


Driving On The Right

by good



Category: DCU (Comics), Deathstroke the Terminator (Comics), Nightwing (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe, And I mean these in the most literal sense, Clothed Sex, Couch Sex, Daddy Kink, Dirty Talk, Everyone Needs A Hug, Fluff and Smut, Light Dom/sub, M/M, Mentions of Death, Mentions of past abuse, Needles, Spanking, tattooing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-28
Updated: 2020-01-21
Packaged: 2020-02-09 12:07:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 17,960
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18637822
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/good/pseuds/good
Summary: “As long as we’re in agreement and you uphold your side of the bargain, I want to do something I like,” Slade explained, a smile on his face that didn’t quite match the glint in his eye. “You’ll enjoy it. I promise.”





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to a sweet potato for beta-reading this for me and staring hard at me when I repeated words twice in a row.
> 
> I got this idea from a prompt-generator. Dick Grayson owns a flower shop and Slade Wilson owns the tattoo parlor across the street from him. For better or for worse, these morons begin a sort of partnership.

Slade Wilson was a handsomely adorned _obelisk_ of an eyesore. From his stark white hair and the patch over his left eye, to the tight black he wore that showed each inch of firm curvature to his body, flaunting -- _on purpose_ \-- his strong arms. Arms that one might imagine running their fingertips over, tracing the permanent masterpieces painted from his shoulders to his wrists.

He was an easy man to hate. Just looking at him evoked a visceral, feral instinct in Dick that both yearned to tame him and trip him onto solid _concrete_. Friendly smiles from afar, but sneers when face to face; he couldn’t recall ever having a single decent conversation with the man. When Dick had opened his quaint little flower shop across the street from Wilson’s Tattoo Parlor, he wouldn’t have guessed he’d be met with such a combination of vitriol and intrigue. He’d thought it was clever, introducing himself by giving his neighbors a small decorative display for their counters. Most had loved them! The sweet girl in the bakery next door even brought him cookies as thanks!

The _most_ in that equation excluded Slade. He’d nearly harked at Dick’s peace offering. The _grandeurity_ of the gesture he performed when waving a hand towards the rows of incense and lack of any foliage in his store was, really, quite spectacular. Dick imagined him making some sort of speech to precedent its wake, but the words he used were astonishingly short tempered and curtly executed. 

“Does it look like I have room to fit a fucking cornucopia in here?”

It made Dick feel foolish.

Still, Slade had taken them. Where he put them or what he did with them remained a mystery to this day, and Dick resigned his suspicions to a more logical outcome; that his flowers met an early, ill-fitted fate in the trash. A reaction that wouldn't have been out of character; Slade was nothing if not a fantastic asshole.

Dick had to wonder why he ran away with them at all.

It was the thought that kept him wandering over to Slade’s parlor during his lunch breaks, and on his days off. He was _interested_ , in whatever way that might have been, negative, or positive. He hated the atmosphere, the attitude, the contrast between them, the fact that Slade refused to call him anything but Richard, or Grayson -- and yet those were the same circumstances that drew him to it like a moth to a flame. A very, very, very hot flame. Dick probably, most likely, _absolutely_ should have kept away, if only to prevent his wings from being burnt to ashes.

Keep away, he did not. Dick had decided he _would_ know Slade.

Days turned to weeks, weeks turned to months, and Dick Grayson had learned, through tactics called pestering Slade Wilson until he ruefully opened up about all types of personal stories and experiences. Dick was well on his way to composing a list. Slade slept around. He had three kids. He’d served in the military. He was approaching his fifties. Slade was divorced. Slade was single.

“So, your son got hurt by the mob, and then she shot you in the eye. _Wow_.”

“You’ve got the jist of it.”

“... Sounds like a real headache.”

Slade’s gaze couldn’t mask the exhaustion behind it. He stared passed the magazine he'd been reading to regard Dick with an expression that was about as bland as a bowl of dried oats.

And that was when Dick had felt the change. 

It was all a carefully constructed masquerade of camaraderie that was about as thin as most stray smiles to cross Slade’s lips. Dick knew him, and unfortunately knowing Slade Wilson so thoroughly meant he was burdened with the knowledge of _knowing_ ; and that _knowing_ was that _things_ had suddenly been _different_. 

Different began with a shrug. Different began with Slade opening his mouth and offering Dick a cup of coffee from the break room. Different began when his hand brushed against the back of Slade’s knuckles while retrieving the coffee he couldn’t refuse and felt his heart leap into his throat. _Different_ was when Slade didn’t draw his hand back fast enough to even pretend it was accidental.

Different was the tension in the distance away from Slade that was further apart than usual. Or perhaps it hadn’t been at all, and the new scope he’d been peering through made the space between them seem excruciatingly far; a gap Dick wanted to close, either with his mouth or his fists. 

“Try not to choke on your own tongue, Tinkerbell. You’re daydreaming again,” Slade said, and Dick decided that it was _definitely_ better with his fists.

“Does that make you Captain Hook? I can see it. You’ve already got a dash of pirate aesthetic going on there.” Dick raised an eyebrow and pointed a finger in the general direction of Slade’s face. It earned a snort, and Dick ignored the skip in his heartbeat.

Dick put his mug down.

“Why are you here, Grayson?”

When Dick glanced up at him again, Slade’s arms were crossed, stoicism in place of any sort of emotion Dick may have tried to read. Not that Slade was easy to gauge in the first place. The particular air of aloofness about him was one of the frustrating perks of his personality that Dick enjoyed loathing. 

“Because we’re friends?” It wasn’t the worst excuse, and the crooked, hopeful smile that accompanied his lie was almost at least 40% genuine. A 40% commitment, if you will. That was _nearly_ 50%, and some people would think 50% was pretty damn good for a passing grade. Sort of.

Slade let a sigh slip free. “I mean, why are you _here_? Wasting your time bothering me with redundant questions about my life, and regaling me with whatever in-house drama your younger brothers are stirring up. Don’t you have _other_ people to shame with the unfortunate circumstance of knowing who the hell you are? I’m an old man. An old man who stabs strangers with needles because they pay me to.”

“That’s certainly an interesting way to describe it,” he joked, an attempt to dissuade the mood Slade was steering their conversation towards. Bittersweet, as his usual go-to. “You didn’t say _no_ to us being _friends_ , by the way.” That time, he _waggled_ his eyebrows. For good measure.

“All that pixie dust has gone to your head. We _aren’t_ friends.”

The backpedal was about as subtle as a dog whistle, but Dick was trained to the slightest pitch of it in Slade’s voice by now. Not by any simple means. “I think I’ve spent enough time excavating my worth within the Sladestratum that I deserve _at least_ the title of close acquaintance. How dare you try to take this achievement from me.”

“I’m not trying to take your delusional associations with me away from you. I’m trying to get an _answer_ out of you.”

That time his tone was clipped, firmer, and Dick’s shoulders felt tight suddenly, the phrasing a tad too parental for his comfort and sitting too warmly in his chest

What _did_ he want from all this?

The silence between them became increasingly unbearable the longer Dick tried to ransack his brain for any good excuse he could take hold of and throw into the open.

Nothing came, and Slade took a step towards him. Every hair on the back of Dick's neck stood on edge.

Slade was the one to cut through the quiet sharp as a blade. "I don't do _companionship_ ," he stated, ironically blunt. "You're barking up the wrong tree, kid. Go back to kindergarten if you want to play pretend house with the other five year olds still obsessed with mommies and daddies."

Rocks sank into the pit of Dick's stomach, the gravity of Slade's words weighing heavy on them. He felt like he couldn't breathe, like Slade had seen into him with that one chilled eye so intimately Dick thought looking elsewhere might stop it from piercing his meticulously stationed barriers.

"That's fine," Dick responded, smothering the tremble that wanted to peek through his voice by nothing short of a miracle. "I don't want to be involved with you, anyway. You're not even my type." He shrugged, nonchalantly. Dick Grayson was as cool as a fucking cucumber and Slade Wilson's abrasiveness wasn't going to dice him into pieces. "I don't do flings, and I know that's all you care about. I've been staying in my lane!"

Slade's brow raised, regarding Dick with pure skepticism. Dick couldn't say it wasn't well-reasoned. 

"Five seconds ago you seemed dangerously close to driving into oncoming traffic." 

Dick dodged the insult as easily as minivans on the wrong side of the freeway. "Are you admitting you're attracted to me, Slade?"

"Are _you_?"

It was a stand-off. Dick had learned something else then, and the burden of his enlightenment was no longer the confidential information of vaguely dangerous natures but the revelation that someone's strings were being pulled and their confessions were being laboriously drawn out into the open. Dick was the puppet and Slade was the puppeteer, ventriloquising his every response up until the point where Dick's conscience became aware of its predicament and chose to stuff a foot so far down his own throat it’d take a team of surgeons to dislodge it from where it hooked onto his lower intestine. With any luck he’d die from his own sheer stupidity.

He'd been outed. Just like that, by consequence of his own pride. Slade had been paying attention to him, and was able to scrutinize Dick down to his core; when had _that_ become a thing? When had Slade gotten so familiar? 

Dick struggled to ignore the erratic drumline in his ears.

“I asked you first.” Mature. Dick wished he could have smacked himself.

“Yes.” Slade didn’t miss a beat, observing Dick, an apex predator watching its prey’s final moments.

The comparison was unsettling. Dick wasn’t sure how to feel about imagining Slade’s teeth around his neck, and the reality that his fantasy sounded a lot better than bad was too telling for its own decency. He quickly swerved passed that train of thought (as expertly as he did all these soccer moms on the road _haha_ ), getting back to the topic at hand, which wasn’t incredibly off from where he placed a bookmark in it.

“I can’t say I’m actually surprised. I keep trying to be, but it feels like this was inevitable, doesn’t it?”

"Of course it was inevitable. Just look at you." Slade made a gesture towards Dick, and he didn’t have the cajones to even be offended by it. Dick wore a pair of bright skinny jeans and and old college hoodie of his. He looked like he was auditioning for the league of prepboy’s, and Slade looked like his idea of a romantic evening was taking someone's v-card in the back of his hemi at a Drive-in. 

"What's wrong with the way I look?" Dick gave himself a once over, arms spread wide, and Slade actually rolled his eye that time.

"You're too pretty."

"... Pardon?" If Dick's voice dialed a notch higher it was everybody else's imagination. "I don't think I heard you right."

Slade took another step closer, then another, and Dick said nothing as he was backed up against the counter with Slade's muscular, domineering form crowded in close, his hands outstretched to rest by either side of Dick's hips on the granite surface. Boxing him in was such a patented _asshole_ move. Dick despised how it made his blood simmer not entirely unhappily. His eyes met Slade's gaze with an intended challenge, but that single iced blue boring holes in him managed to extinguish the defiant flames flickering within his chest. Slade was a man who knew what he wanted, a man who demanded his dominance, and Dick was painstakingly well-educated on the matter if literally _any_ of their interactions could be accounted for. The trapping thing was hardly necessary to get the point across. 

"Listen _closely_ this time," he _ordered_ , the notes dragged on for too long and the heat in Dick's cheeks too warm. Slade leaned in, closing the space between them until his body all but blanketed over Dick's, his lips close enough to Dick's ear he could feel every breath against his bare skin. "You're pretty, Richard. I want to have you. I've wanted you since the _day_ you stepped foot in here."

Words were hard to grasp. Dick manicured his expression to fit a well-worn mask of indifference.

"That's a long time to hold a crush," came his response, childlike, and while Slade's lips tipped down in disapproval Dick quickly picked the pieces of his dignity back up. "You don't do relationships, though."

"That is correct."

"You want me to forfeit any sense of self-preservation I have so you can get your rocks off while I end up stuck questioning my convictions. No thanks."

"I'm amazed you've made it this far in life without someone slapping the shit out of you." Slade was inscrutable except for the part where irritation seeped from his voice. “If you can comprehend what my standards are, then _why_ are you _here_?”

And with that, Dick found it hard to find an answer again. Not because the answer was impossible to achieve, but that it was impossible to say.

If he lied again, it’d be so easy to slither out of Slade’s barricade. He could stand his ground and claim he liked the company and worm his way underneath Slade’s skin until the man would finally have enough of him and throw him out. It was a regrettable talent of Dick’s. His other option? Confess. Admit to the tension he felt, to the way his stomach pulled taut at the merest glance Slade gave him. The currents that drew Dick closer to Slade were an undertow of temptation that threatened to swallow him whole, promising every tantalizing inch of his desires could be filled if he stopped struggling and fell to where Slade sat at the bottom of the abyss _waiting_ for him to collapse into his embrace. Dick feared it. Slade was a double edged sword, a flavor both sweet and sour; he could give Dick what his body wanted, but not what his soul needed. 

But boy. He _wanted_. It wasn’t fair.

He just couldn’t picture it. A quick fling? Friends with benefits? Would it only be a one time thing before Slade got bored of him? Dick wasn’t sure he could open up to someone that way, knowing it wasn’t personal. His body should have been a sanctuary, right? 

“You’re thinking too hard about this,” Slade interrupted his thoughts, drawing back. Dick’s hands curled into fists by his sides. Better than using them to make some sort of mistake. “If you want something, then take it.”

Dick felt the rhythm of his pulse firmly against his ribcage, sucking in a deep breath. He looked down, then up, indecisive until he was sure he wanted to meet Slade’s eye. “Like _you_ do?”

Slade's smile sent a chill down the entirety of his spine. A hand lifted, slowly, reaching for Dick until he felt the large, calloused underside of Slade's palm cup to fit his jaw, gentle despite how rough they were. A thumb stroked over the frame of his face, and only then did he consider his cheeks might have been too dark, too telling, Slade's ministrations focused on outlining him until the pad of that finger caught just the edge of his lips. And Dick- Well, he parted them. The response itself, automatic, got his eyes to grow wide, and he was frozen in place while Slade used only just enough pressure to tug Dick's lower lip down.

"If I took what I wanted you'd already be mine, pretty bird."

Something caught in Dick's chest. He didn't get a chance to speak, or breathe, or even blink. Slade was gone at the same time his front door rang, cheerful noises erupting beyond the break room.

Dick allowed himself a minute to regain his bearings. He scrambled for the back entrance, and fled.

  
  
  


* * *

* * *

  


  
  


Five days.

He’d managed five days on his own to mull about the offer Slade presented him. Dick had succumb to rationalizing it. The tension had persisted between them so long, what if Slade felt... _more_ than what he let on? There had to be _some_ modicum of fondness for Dick buried in the man's body, a nuanced inkling for Dick that Slade kept embedded in the cold crevice where Slade’s heart should have been; otherwise, he would have sent Dick away by now and told him to never come back. _Obviously_. Why else would he bother sitting through what Slade repeatedly referred to as, quote, _lugubrious, auditory transgressions against my ears not unlike a form of articulated waterboarding in my hearing canals_ , unquote.

“It can’t be a one time thing,” Dick announced the second he entered Slade’s parlor, door jingling upon his arrival, the only sound in an otherwise undisturbed scene as Slade glanced up from where he was hunched over, his current client following the line of his sight, a half finished skull on her arm.

Dick wanted to combust into flames. 

“My tattoo! I want it in segments! I have very thin skin, the needle hurts,” he covered up promptly, at least to make it seem like he wasn’t spouting contextless nonsense.

The girl appeared less interested with that reply, her attention drawn to watch Slade resume work on her ink. Dick considered it a clean save.

“Wait in the back for me. We’ll discuss the details once I’m finished here. It’s your day off?” 

“Yes.” 

“Feel free to help yourself to any snacks Rose has left lying around.”

_As if._ Dick was so anxious he felt sick. He renounced himself to the breakroom for what felt like hours, and may as well have been, the couch serving as his only companion in these trying times. It wasn’t even a comfy couch. The cushions were so thin he could feel the springs in the box frame underneath when he laid down, if not the entire box frame itself; Dick wondered why Slade even owned a couch _this shitty_ in the first place, he was sure the name breakroom didn’t imply for things inside it to literally be broken. This was a level of irony that was basically asinine, much like his whole predicament had been since he entered the store.

When the door opened at last Dick shot up straight, turning his head to peer over the back of the couch at Slade. 

There hadn’t been an opportunity for Dick to really _look at_ him today, but now he could, and he looked… _good_. Tight black pants and an even tighter dark shirt with some sort of orange splash design across it. He’d rolled the short sleeves up his shoulders, and it was infuriating how much Dick found himself ogling at Slade’s damn biceps. All Dick wore was some jeggings and an oversized sweater. Goddamnit. Heat sank into his belly and he decided that was enough of _that_.

“Hello,” he greeted since Slade hadn’t bothered, watching as Slade shut the door behind him and came around the sofa to take a seat beside Dick.

“I closed up for today,” he began, leaning back into what Dick was now familiar with as nothing but wood in a really large sock. “I take it you’ve reconsidered.”

It wasn’t phrased as a question, and it didn’t need to be. Dick dug his nails into the upholstery he sat on. “I told you I don’t do flings. If we _get together_ , I don’t want it to be once. And I don’t want you sleeping with other people while you’re sleeping with me,” he stated, confident in his words despite everything else. He’d thought long and hard about this throughout the week, and… this was the only way he could compromise.

“I like a lot of things, Grayson,” is how Slade chose to start his response, breathing deep before he continued. “You’ll have to be open to trying them, if you want me to be your exclusive fuck buddy.” Blunt as ever, of course. Dick should have learned how to stop being mortified over it by now.

“I can be open.” With the way it was said, Dick felt like he was accepting a challenge.

That may as well have been the case.

Slade tipped forward to ease Dick back, and when his hand fell to Dick’s shoulder it encountered little to no resistance. Dick permitted it to lay him against the seat cushions. Apprehension swam in his chest, restlessness setting in, and then Slade’s _palm_ was on his chest, and Slade was maneuvering over him-- 

“Wait-” Dick raised his brow, and- this was a very good angle to look at Slade from. Jesus _Christ_. “What’re you doing?” A little late, but nobody could say he didn’t try.

“As long as we’re in agreement and you uphold your side of the bargain, I want to do something I like,” Slade explained, a smile on his face that didn’t quite match the glint in his eye. “You’ll enjoy it. I promise.”

If Slade had fangs, Dick was sure he’d be flashing them (and it would be hot). He pressed his lips together in silent resignation, and then _Slade’s lips_ were on his neck, soft in contrast to the scratchy tickle of his beard that made Dick turn his head away and shiver. Or maybe it was the firm press of a tongue to his throat, or the graze of teeth. It was hard to tell. Slade was on top of him and _touching him_ at long fucking last and Dick felt like crawling out of his own skin.

It was happening. It was _happening_ and he was _letting_ it and Slade dove right into his own enjoyment, grasping Dick by his waist and pulling their hips flush together as he mouthed his way down to the collar of Dick’s sweater. 

Slade rolled forward and Dick hadn't even gotten the chance for his breath to catch before Slade was murmuring into his flesh. “You’re hard.”

“Don’t just _point it out_ ,” he huffed, blood rushing to his face and turning it well and truly red. A flush dusted his cheeks up to the very tips of his ears, he could feel it, and that fact itself was almost as humiliating as Slade mocking him. “What’s wrong with you?”

“You like it.” His concerns were dismissed immediately. Dick hated it as much as he _did_ like it. To think, he _liked_ being treated this way. Slade was bad for his health. Then again, most things that were too good to resist weren’t healthy. “You couldn’t wait for me to get my hands under your skirt. Hah- If I asked you to wear a skirt for me, you’d do it, wouldn’t you?”

Okay what the fuck. 

There was a twinge between Dick’s legs that wasn’t Slade. His hands rested beside his head, fingers curled into his sleeves while Slade pressed the rest of his sweater up high above his ribs. “You’re giving yourself too much credit.”

“Am I lying? Tell me.” Dick could feel him grinning against his skin and chose to not get pissed off about it, because whatever Slade was doing felt great. He fell silent for a moment to enjoy it, the hot breath against his throat and wet kisses that trailed higher now, until they fell to his ear and peppered the shell of it in delightful, feather-light touches.

Slade’s fingers mimicked the carefully paced softness of it, skimming barely up Dick’s sides and leaving goosebumps in their wake. Dick shuddered, a delicate noise on the tip of his tongue. That was all the confirmation Slade needed, apparently, before he was speaking low into Dick’s ear again, every word punctuated in a way that let Dick feel them down to his bones. “That’s what I thought. Now be a good boy and turn over for me, Grayson.”

“Wh-What?” Dick gaped, a tremble in his knees that couldn’t be subdued. “I’ve never- I don’t want to do it on your thrift shop furniture for our first time.” 

“Great. I don’t want to do it here, either. I’m trying to get something else done,” he commented, tone too monotone for Dick to measure the implications behind it. Slade’s palm fitted against his hip, and before Dick had another chance to protest he was being flipped onto his stomach, _effortlessly_. The mere concept of Slade’s strength set off butterflies in his tummy. Dick was glad nobody could see his face. “I’m going to make you feel good. Consider it compensation for your troubles.”

“My troubles,” he parroted, without really thinking about what Slade may have meant. “Slade, what are you about to do to me? I’d like to know first.”

“It’s not what I’m about to do to you, boy. It’s what I’m _going to_ do to you,” came Slade’s reply, close again, his chest pressed up to meet the curve of Dick’s body.

A stinging fervor engulfed his every sense like a flood; Slade chipped away at the edges of his composure, and it started with those deep-seated desires being murmured into his ear once again. Dick hadn’t wanted to acknowledge the stiffness between his thighs, but that feeble attempt to cling to the remaining shreds of his dignity faded at the same time Slade’s palm slid back over the globes of his ass. It dipped under him, and Dick went rigid at the contact when Slade cupped his sensitive flesh through his leggings and _rubbed_ firmly, once.

“Slade-” he mumbled, acutely aware of how small his voice had gotten. Embarrassment branded his features. Fingers curled under his chin and coaxed his head to tip back, an experiment in their muted instructions; gauging how compliant he _really_ was in their grasp. Dick was content in testing the waters, and when he allowed it Slade rewarded him with another firm stroke that made him gasp. There was no hope in shying away, regardless, not when Slade’s thigh was slotted under his own. His hands reached for the arm of the couch, anything he could grab onto to help relieve the tension growing in his shoulders. Dick was flexible, but this was awkward and dare he say a little uncomfortable.

To think he was doing this. To think, he was letting Slade _touch him_ like this while getting off _scott-free_. 

“All you have to do is lay there and listen,” Slade cooed at him, brushing aside the miniscule protest Dick tried to weave into his tone. “I want you, Richard. I want to make you mine. And I _will_ have you. Later, not now. You just stay still and feel good for me while I talk.” His murmurs rumbled softly against Dick and sent sparks of pleasure throughout every nerve, his hips twitching under the palm keeping up its persistent lack of pressure. Not enough for Dick to grind against, not enough to jerk him off, but a frustrating presence that made Dick want to squirm.

And he _did_ , writhing in place, inching back in hopes of making contact with something a bit more firm, a little more Slade’s body. He made it far enough, but Slade refused to move his arm out of his way. 

Bastard. 

He had the audacity to laugh at Dick as if it were amusing. Somehow, Dick wasn’t able to find his voice to say anything about it. Slade had him under a spell, and it made his eyelids feel heavy. “I’m going to take you home and lay you out on my bed. I’ll undress you piece by piece,” he continued, murmuring softly into Dick’s cheek, his neck, his hair. Anywhere it seemed Slade could reach. “I’m going to kiss you hard enough to leave bruises all along those pretty shoulders of yours. I’ll make you whine for me to stop teasing you when I get your chest in my hands.” As if to emphasize, Slade released Dick’s throat in order to slide his palm underneath the sweater. Dick let his forehead fall onto the cushions below while Slade’s fingers trailed higher until they brushed against one of the sensitive perks on his chest.

“ _Ah-_ ” It earned a soft noise from Dick, his back arching so he could feel more of that faint, barely there graze. It was impossible not to be eager for more, and whatever Slade was doing to him, what he was _saying_ to him, sunk deep into his bones and coiled low in his groin where his thighs tensed. Dick was lightheaded, but he couldn’t place why. It didn’t seem important to wonder very long about it.

All that _did_ matter was what Slade would say next. “When I fuck you,” and that, he emphasized with a firmer grind of his palm, and Dick _moaned_ , “I’ll fuck you agonizingly slow, let you feel every inch of my cock inside you on every thrust until you cry for more, and when you’re teetering on the edge of coming I’m going to bend those nimble legs of yours behind your head and use you like a sleeve.”

The sound that tore itself from deep in Dick’s chest was _wanton_. His eyes fluttered and molten goodness corded its way from where Slade was sucking a mark into the crook of his neck down to the tip of his arousal. The inside of his boxers felt sticky with pre, but that didn't bother Dick. It didn’t bother him at all, how wet Slade got him, and how much he wanted more of this.

The more he got, the more it pushed him towards a wall he yearned to climb over like he’d never before.

“I want to watch you sob your way through begging me to come inside you, pretty bird. And when I tell you to sing for me, you will, and I’ll get to feel you squeeze my cock tight enough to hurt while I fuck you until you’re screaming my name. I want to watch you come apart. I want to watch you _break._ ” Slade’s voice was breathless, possessiveness behind it, and all Dick could do was smother his voice as he got louder, more desperate, doing anything he could to gain any added friction between Slade and his aching erection. He couldn’t have been _close_ , could he? With only _this_? 

Slade refused to offer anything. He let Dick suffer on his own, practically whining in frustration, knees spreading further apart until one slipped off the side of the couch. But Slade took advantage, drawing his hand back to press his hips up flush against Dick’s _at last_ to grind into him. He could feel the rough bulge in Slade’s pants just about everywhere, a steady pace between his legs like Slade was keeping Dick open for him and _God_ had it been _good_. 

“Mmnfuck, _Slade_ -!” Dick muffled his cries into the crook of his elbow and Slade laughed, practically a growl, his hand shifting to wear grooves into Dick’s thigh.

“I already know how amazing you’ll feel around me. You’re such a good boy, even now, and I’ve barely done anything but _talk_ to you.” Slade’s teeth pinched his earlobe, and then- “Are you going to show me just how _good_ you can be, Richard?”

Fireworks erupted in Dick’s stomach and suddenly that tight heat in him was intolerable. It pooled low and spots of color danced across his vision. Slade was pulling each one of his strings individually until they were wrapped in intricate patterns around his fingers, and every time he yanked one back Dick felt the agonizing loss of control over his body.

“I can- I can show it!” Dick moaned again, louder, a sound high pitched and sensual, his hips lifting just for Slade as he imagined what it would _really_ feel like to be at his mercy.

Something not unlike diving over the edge of a waterfall, Dick thought.

“Come for me, pretty bird.”

And that was all the push he needed. All at once the tension grew to a point and then… then it capsized. His hips stuttered and Dick choked on a cry, heat filling his head while it also filled the inside of his boxers. It had only lasted seconds but those seconds felt like minutes and when he finally came Dick felt every _ounce_ of energy abandon his body. He sunk down right where he was in Slade’s grasp, boneless, panting heavily without making any sort of effort to move.

Slade drew back, carefully, and then Dick felt fingers thread through his hair, massage his scalp with tender motions and then lower, down the back of his neck, dipping between his shoulder blades and over his sides while they inched his sweatshirt back into place to cover him.

Dick melted under it all. He let his eyes shut and his cheek rest against his arms after folding them like a pillow. Those soothing ministrations continued, a comfortable lull between the two of them. Dick _almost_ didn’t mind the mess that he was ignoring in favor of earning Slade’s pampering.

The moment had to end, eventually, and the silence broke when Slade spoke. “Satisfied?”

“Mmn yes,” he sighed, happily. “Holy mackerel. What did you do to me…”

“I believe I did what the kids call talking you off.” Slade gave a snort and drew a hand back as if to examine his nail beds. Dick stared at him from where he turned his head just enough to look back. “And you enjoyed it. Good.”

Dick’s cheeks felt warm all over again. “Okay, but what about _after_ all of that. The soothing me part, like some kind of wild beast.”

Slade actually looked at him now, and the minute amount of concern that flashed over his features was so brief Dick could have convinced himself that he only imagined it, if he really tried hard enough. “Aftercare,” he said bluntly, the only word Dick had to work with.

“You didn’t do anything _extreme_ to me. I’m a big boy, I can take whatever, you know. I’m not a teenager who can’t handle staring at his girlfriend’s breasts without wetting his pants.” Dick frowned.

Why did that make him feel… not great? He didn’t want Slade to babysit him. He wanted Slade to _kiss_ him. The two things were totally contradictory to each other!

“It’s not that.” Slade’s lips were pressed into a thin line, and then he reached forward, tapping Dick on the head twice. “You were mentally, and emotionally, vulnerable. For _me_. I put you into an exposed state of mind, whether you realize that or not. Jesus, Grayson. Haven’t your past partners taught you _anything_?”

Dick blinked at him, digesting the information during the moments it took for him to respond. “My ex-girlfriend asked me to rub her feet, once, after we had sex.”

There was a long silence.

Slade turned his head away.

“So I’m the first like this.” 

“Yeah, I’d say that,” Dick agreed, pretending like the atmosphere wasn’t suddenly awkward. “And the first man. Is that… a problem for you?”

There was another long silence. Dick fidgeted with a seam of the cushion he was lying on, before he carefully began to sit up, turning to observe Slade more closely. His name was on the tip of his tongue in an unformed question, but just as he opened his mouth to speak, Slade grabbed him by the arm and hoisted Dick to his feet while he straightened. Dick gaped, trailing after Slade as he was dragged towards the door.

“We’re going to my house. If you have any reservations, speak now.”

_Oh_. Dick blushed, he _blushed_ , and then he smiled while Slade couldn’t see him, the relief overwhelming. “No complaints, except maybe I’d like a shower, and maybe get out of these boxers first?”

“You’ll survive ten more minutes.”

“You’re such a gentleman. Take me out on a date.”

“Where?”

Dick was genuinely shocked by the lack of resistance. He smiled wider. Something stirred in his chest. “I want to go to the zoo, and have dinner together, and get desserts at that sweets place down the block.”

“I’ll take you wherever you want.”

There was a strange power bestowed upon Dick in whatever the fresh Hell had just happened between them in the span of two minutes, but he certainly wasn’t going to say anything about it. If Slade wanted to spoil him, so be it.

He’d enjoy himself; and while Slade was busy denying they had any type of intimate bond, Dick would reap the benefits of their companionship until he caved.

Because Slade would. Dick was sure of that.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _i spin to face you in my jumbo sized office chair. "well well well. we meet again, mister powers." i raise my pinky to the corner of my lips. "prepare to be... annihilated."_
> 
> anyways. HELLO!
> 
> so many people wanted to know more about this AU and the progressing relationship between slade and dick, and because i don't have any self control i have succumbed to the whims of the audience. and then i accidentally wrote 12k worth of fic by accident. oops!
> 
>  **BEFORE YOU CONTINUE** , i must advise that you heed the new tags that ive added! in terms of past abuse mentioned, there is nothing extreme or very detailed, but to be safe i have included the warnings anyway. those who read the comics will probably be able to piece two and two together from the hints dropped, and that's really all they are, just hints. now, as for the tattooing part... well... [i am looking away dot jpeg]
> 
> anyways², ive obviously taken a lot of liberties in _a lot_ of areas since this is a no-hero AU. i just hope you all have as much fun reading this as i have had in conceiving the universe. this is entirely self indulgent. if you like tooth rotting fluff then this is for you. there are no unhappily ever afters in my stories, life is too depressing already for that.
> 
> **enjoy!**

Unexpected was a word foreign to Bruce Wayne. 

So foreign, in fact, that Unexpected was an uncharted island out in the Pacific, inhabited only by tribes untouched by plagues of the modern world; needlessly torturous elaborations of society, where intricately machinated justice systems arbitrated whether or not someone served a vast assortment of repercussions or not. The months spent meticulously planning each and every grand gathering held at Wayne Manor annually could be described as nothing other than what Dick would categorize as a heaping pile of _wasted time._

There were always more important trials at hand, more important halls to guard and stalk. There were crimes being conducted outside of Bruce's ostentatiously decorated home where people with deep pockets and deeper running scandals mingled in crowds of their fellow socialites.

Men and women sipping gleefully from their champagne glasses while exchanging nuanced opinions with each other on whether or not the local orphanage was worth spending tax dollars on to fix the plumbing. None of that was of any _real_ interest. 

Bruce was always plotting. Monotonously weeding out the weakest threads in his intricately woven web of monopolizing every visible inch of Gotham’s capitalistic entourage. And Dick saw through his farce; how he manipulated people with words and kindness. Empty promises to get sponsors and business partners to turn over more of their foundations to the hands of Wayne, offering insight and money and shares in exchange for his allegiance. Only to be infiltrated and ratted out months later.

If they hadn’t been morally rotten conglomerates, Dick would have been ashamed of him.

So it didn't make sense to Dick when he found Bruce in his tiny apartment, occupying his favorite seat on the couch with an open magazine over the lap of his prim, dark suit. The essence of nonchalance.

It made sense even less given the fact that he couldn't recall ever offering Bruce a spare key. 

But then Dick remembered this was _Bruce,_ and he often did this, even back at the Manor, including Dick's old bedroom in the armchair kept at the far corner. He was a genuine _control freak,_ and Dick would never admit to where he got it from.

"Barbara said you're seeing someone," is what he'd said. Dick fought back the urge to laugh, because it was such a ridiculously sudden statement that it felt accusatory.

That may have been true.

Dick had brushed it off. The memory of his night with Bruce was short, filled with idle small talk and tea. Full of questions.

Whatever he had going on in his private life didn't necessarily have a label. Or it did, and it was not something to mention in the polite company of one's legal guardian. He wasn't going to utter a single word of it, and the realization that Dick may or may not have been _dating_ someone that he couldn't tell Bruce about must have been a foghorn in an ocean of suspicious.  
  


* * *

* * *

  
  
"Y'know, he has no right," Dick says to Slade one evening, three days into their endeavors, while draped over the front counter of the parlor. "It's a total invasion of my privacy."

Slade counted the cash in his till, deliberately slow, as if to keep up with the conversation. Dick found his attention drawn to those fingers the entire time. "How long has he been keeping tabs on you?"

"Aside from apparently my whole _life_ since living with him?"

"And you really thought he'd stop once you moved out." A fat stack of bills slapped the counter, bound by a single rubber band. "Cute."

"It's not normal to treat your ward as a criminal before he's ever even done anything wrong. Like he's just waiting for me to mess up and prove him right that I can't escape the flaws of humanity in His Holy presence." Dick tossed his arms up in dramatic effect.

"You aren't his ward anymore." Slade eyed him, then turned to face Dick as his hand reached. A single finger trailed down the bridge of his nose. "All little birds fall from the nest eventually. He's worried about who's cage you happened to land in."

Dick slanted his mouth. "Are you implying that you own me, Slade?"

He didn't receive a response.

Four days later, Slade waltzed into his shop, and Dick stole his first kiss in the tiny backroom over bouquets of carnations and paeonia.  
  


* * *

* * *

  
  
It took one month for Dick to reluctantly show Slade his apartment; nursing the ass end of a flu with Nyquil and orange juice. Slade rubbed circles into the muscles on his neck and shoulders with a shocking amount of delicacy. It soothed all of the aches that prevented him from getting a good night's rest. Dick practically sang his praises.

Slade tucked him into bed and helped him with "necessary requirements" like "breakfast" and "bathing." 

He felt positively _pampered._

Bruce turned up the day Dick could finally make it back into work.

"Tim said you haven't been open all week."

Dick rang Bruce up for the wreath in front of him, because like hell was he going to let a billionaire usurp free goods from the working class. Dick put a lot of effort into making these batches. "Yeah, I caught some kinda bug. You shoulda seen me! I was The Blob."

Bruce gazed at him, unimpressed. "Did you see a doctor?"

He knew what that meant. It meant that Bruce already knew he didn't, one way or another, and was waiting for Dick to say no, so that he could lecture him and have the upper hand.

A smile molded itself onto his face. "It wasn't that bad."

"You closed shop." Bruce's brow drew low, a frown painting his lips, and Dick had prayed he wouldn't start with the– "Dick..."

His eyes were rolling back before Bruce could even finish formulating the next sentence.

"If you aren't taking care of yourself-"

Dick dropped the wreath too hard onto its pile of tissue papers. "If _you_ were really worried, you would've come see me. You would've called me, or stopped by, or anything other than wait for me to feel so bad I'd maybe have to ask you for help."

Bruce pinched his lips together and Dick felt something just shy of vindication swell in his chest.

"This has to stop, Bruce."

No answer. Dick wondered why that felt so familiar as he watched Bruce leave.  
  


* * *

* * *

  
  
Slade had the patience of a saint. Always demanded but never forced; despite his... colorful agenda. Never crossed any boundaries Dick didn't consent to being breached. Never guilted or coerced him into decisions that involved taking his pants off when he didn't want to.

It was two months before Dick discovered each exciting new way his body could contort itself and its exact threshold for pain. He'd grown accustomed to all the interests Slade wasn't shy about vocalizing, and occasionally demonstrating.

Then he learned what it felt like to _enjoy_ the pain, and why his muscles corded tightly down his stomach to his thighs whenever Slade dragged him across his lap or shoved him up against a wall. Dick found he liked the sting and reprimanding and the praise of doing _well._

For all that Slade was a man who earned his Masters in Douchebaggery from Van Wilder University, he _never_ forced, and that stuck. Something wove itself between them in that time.

Something soft, something intimately private.

A trust between them, delicately threaded through their too-close whispers. 

Slade fucks him between his thighs, sweaty forehead pressed against his shoulder. Mindfull, meticulous. His fingers wear grooves into Dick's hips, bruising, hanging onto a morsel of self-restraint. He _begs,_ and by begs, Dick means he whispers, _"Now?"_

"Not yet," Dick says.

"Okay."

He couldn’t count how many times Slade came between his thighs by then, how many times they’d done things the rudimentary way; no penetration, Dick demanded. Not until he was ready for it, until he knew Slade wasn’t going to bolt the second he got what he wanted out of Dick’s body; until Dick was sure he wouldn’t keep shaking the whole way through it.

Respect had been so far and few between in his life. To be respected was new. It was cherished, and it took five months for Dick to realize his relationship with Slade contained what he'd been searching for in all of the wrong places before.  
  


* * *

* * *

  
  
"You have no business with him, Wilson," Bruce says from the other end of the counter, cold as ice. 

It’d been seven months, the third time Bruce had decided to go toe to toe with Slade over some imaginary honor system that seemed suspiciously close to a pissing contest.

"What business might that be, Wayne?" Slade doesn't miss a beat, arms folded on the granite between them, casual, unintimidated by Bruce's presence.

Dick found himself at a loss, gaze flitting back and forth, Bruce to Slade, Slade to Bruce. He despised these arguments. Never could guess what Bruce might say–

"I've read your case file. You should be rotting in prison."

"If you read it, then you’d know I was acquitted."

"How many strings did you have them pulling for you?"

"The jury had full agency."

"You're a gun for hire, and a _murderer_ -"

Slade's palms hit the counter, loud enough it made Dick jolt in place.

"They broke into my home, threatened my wife, and cut my boy's throat." Slade stood tall, eye on Bruce. Vicious. "Criminals nearly killed my son, because the people obligated to protect him couldn't do their fucking jobs. You want me to feel _guilty?_ I lost my family, my eye, and was discharged from the military, for putting people who slaughter _children_ in their places. All because of one mission, that _your_ authorities put me on."

Bruce's lips pinched together, then opened, caught on a retort.

Slade didn't let him say it as he loomed over, sneering.

"You tell me, _Wayne,_ that if your boy was hurt, you wouldn't sleep, eat, or _breathe_ until you made someone _pay._ You're no better than I am. You can sit there on your high horse all day, because you've never held a gun, because you've never seen _war,_ but you don't get to tell me that what I did for my family was ever unjustified. The jury heard my testimony, you've read the documents. It was unanimous whether you like that or not."

Dick doesn’t think that he wanted to hear this. He’d never pried for details, not when Slade was already so honest about Joey; not when Slade didn’t mind Rose opening up to him about her upbringing and how complex the custody papers were when she was brought from overseas. The court battles, the lawyers, old cases brought up for slander. Dick was a friend before he was anyone’s partner. He cared.

Caring meant having some form of understanding,

When Bruce stormed out of the shop, it’d been with a narrowed gaze towards Dick. One that conveyed how disappointed he was, as if he couldn't believe Dick was running with the type of crowd that was Slade Wilson’s particular brand. 

It’s funny, that one person could even be considered a crowd all on his own now.

Slade is definitely sizeable, but a whole gaggle is pretty rude.

He locked the front door, shut off the open sign, and when he turned back to face Slade there’d been a look on his face that Dick hadn’t seen before.

Guilt.

Regret.

It sank slowly down into Dick’s stomach, thick like tar and just as heavy. Slade was not a man to be swayed easily by words meant to harm him, his exterior built to weather any storm that came in the form of articulated warfare. Finely crafted from a life of clawing his way to the top and guarding himself indefinitely. Dick knew this, because he had to learn it, piece together the man all on his own with the information entrusted to him. 

With every glance Slade had ever given him and the tone that his voice took when he was too exhausted for the usual bravado.

He’d learned that Slade was just as much of a control freak as Bruce, albeit for different reasons, and in different aspects. He knew why Slade’s marriage never worked out. He knew why his kids felt alienated despite what he’d done for them.

He knew Slade was a man who blamed himself for everything that's ever gone wrong in his life starting from the day he was born and carried those burdens on his shoulders as if reminding himself of them is what made him stronger. As if embracing them is what fuses him to this personality he created for himself; some aggressive outward persona, a mask worn just as well as Dick’s own to keep outsiders away from internal affairs.

It’s a distraction, so that nobody could look too closely, like Dick had, to find a tired, depreciated human being beneath confidence that has taken decades to mold just right. Confidence that is weighted so heavily that it’s buried the owner under it.

“I’m sorry.” It’s not Dick who said it. It’s Slade. “You shouldn’t have heard that.”

Dick swallowed with effort, stepping up to the counter so he could reach and cover Slade’s tightened fist with his open palm. “No. _I’m_ sorry, about Bruce. I didn’t think he’d pull something so _bold_. He’s a real piece of work sometimes,” he sighed, frown plastered onto his lips.

Slade didn’t respond, jaw clenched tight, like he hadn’t known what to say. 

The feeling was more than mutual.

“It was my parents, for me, “ he said suddenly, and Slade met his gaze with an unsure look in his eye. 

Dick cleared his throat. “I grew up in the circus. My parents and me, we were acrobats. Trapeze artists. Mom used to call me her little robin.”

He offered just one sad, barely there smile, eyes dropping to stare at where he’d started to stroke a thumb over Slade’s tight knuckles. Slade already knew that. He knew Dick’s parents passed away when he was young, and then Bruce took him under his wing. 

Never how. Always too hard to really say out loud, most days.

“They were murdered. Mafia. Sometimes I still have nightmares about the – the cut wires, and the sounds their bodies made when they hit the – “ Dick cut himself off with a small shake of his head, before he could get too deep into that. Ignored the way Slade had started to stare passed his own carefully adorned veil. “I got put into foster care after that. Got mad. Used to sneak out, back to the circus, tried to find the guy who killed them, y’know? Bruce was heavy on the investigation for his case to figure out who did it. I spent a lot of time with him back then. Picked up a few things, like when police finally caught Zucco, real scumbag of a guy. He talked.”

That time Slade’s other hand, loose, came over to cover his own. 

“You wanted revenge,” he said, so matter of factly.

“Yeah.” Dick didn't even try to deny it. “Ratted out our ringleader, Stan Rutledge. He chased me up onto the freight trucks, and he – slipped. Tiger cage.”

Slade stilled his ministrations, and Dick merely shrugged.

“I didn’t feel bad about it. It’s been twenty years, and I still don’t. The things he did to my parents, what he made happen to Pop Haly, to _me_ – I won’t ever feel bad. Jail would have been too good for him,” he said, firm, a sureness in his voice that didn’t waver that time.

“Wayne doesn’t see it like that,” Slade provided, already knowing.

“ _Of course_ he doesn’t. Bruce believes every case needs to go through the justice system. He was so mad about it because the bad guy couldn’t do his time, and knowing Rutledge died didn’t change anything. It didn’t bring my parents back, it didn’t make me feel like I _won._ It was awful. The only thing that even made it feel slightly better was telling myself that Rutledge couldn’t hurt anybody anymore, and Zucco got put behind bars for good.”

Dick brought his empty hand on top of Slade’s, and it was ridiculous, their palms piled on top of one another like some type of team huddle. He squeezed hard, brow creasing as he steeled his nerves. “Sometimes the justice system isn’t enough. Sometimes there are bad people who need to be stopped, and the structures in place that’re meant to protect us don’t _work._ And then who suffers from it, Slade?”

“Joseph,” he responded, voice distant, and Slade's head tipped down and Dick had decided that it was a level of vulnerability from Slade he never wanted to experience again. Nobody deserved that -- nobody who’d been scorned so badly by the universe. If Bruce was allowed his case with the patient of Harleen Quinzel, then he was allowed to share common ground here with Slade in his private, incredibly less publicized life.

“We were special forces. The higher-ups thought they were being clever, sending us to slaughter innocent people. I refused. Those men are still in power, my ex-comrades still out there, serving no time for their crimes. The military hired me for other things. I wasn’t a good person then, could barely be considered anything close to decent _now,_ but – but then I got the order to take out someone big, and my identity got out, it put my family in danger. Addie didn’t know. She was right to hate me, after everything. I was their dog, only useful for assassination jobs. I thought I was doing something good, until I found out I wasn’t.”

“You were in service since you were sixteen, Slade. You were conditioned and they jaded you. They put _chemicals_ in you, like a _lab rat._ They ran _experiments_ -“

“I did this to myself, and I dragged them into it. You don’t think anything Wayne said holds some merit to it? He’s right.” Slade gulped, audibly. “I’m a murderer. Joseph was hurt because of me. Grant joined the army because of me, and now he’s _dead._ I’m lucky Rose has enough sense in her to stay with Wintergreen.”

“ _You_ made her live with William. Don’t lie to me. Rose told me herself.” Dick’s fingers curled, clutching onto Slade’s...

And he resigned himself to silence again, stiff as a board, and Dick simply sighed before he started to round the counter. Slade barely lifted his head once Dick was by his side, and then he put an arm around his shoulders, one across his chest and urging Slade to tip into him.

He did, head turned and smothered against Dick’s belly.

“What are you doing,” he asked, blank, like he even needed to.

“I’m hugging you. It’s called consolation, numbnuts.”

“Is name-calling part of the consolation?”

“Only if you want it to be.”

He huffed something, all hot breath into Dick’s shirt, and it was terrible and he hated the way that it felt.

At least, he tried to tell himself that he did.

“Maybe.”  
  


* * *

* * *

  
  
Dick watched him from his side of the mattress, haloed by the morning light, stress grooves eased by the relief of a good night’s rest. He studied him, everything he could in the short time that he had before Slade would stir awake. The pink scars that stemmed from a permanently closed lid, soft he knew to touch but pin-needles-sensitive for another party, something he’d sworn to be careful with, to never abuse. Always mindful even when he’s clumsily grabbing at perfectly bleached hair.

He wondered if it’d always been his natural color, lightened with age, or if it happened after the recruitment. Rose’s is the same, but Babs did tell him once when he was still a kid to never ask a girl about her appearance. 

Slade is handsome, well-kept unlike Dick, who’d opt for shaggy hair and an oversized hoodie on most days. Slade puts work into his looks, is still incredibly young looking for his age, like he’s not a day over forty. He’ll probably look just as great for another two decades, even though Dick has already started to find grey hairs hidden in his own mop.

Much like Bruce, who had good looks coursing through his genes, still looked like he’d been in his thirties, all pristine and taken care of and excellent. 

Dick would say he was jealous if the sudden thought of his almost-adoptive-father while trying to appreciate his boyfr- partn- _lover,_ didn’t churn awkwardly in the very folds of his intestines. 

So he promptly dropped _that_ hot mess to scoot closer to Slade instead, stealing his warmth underneath the covers and finding a muscley arm to use as a pillow.  
  


* * *

* * *

  
  
“I got you something.”

It just about scared the shit out of him.

Dick paused in the doorway, groceries in arms, and it was a testament to his own self control that he didn’t jump out of his skin and drop everything on the floor when he heard Slade, who'd decided to park himself comfortably on one of the lazy boy’s in Dick’s living room at a terrifyingly late hour of the night.

Is it really so easy for people to keep doing this to him?

“How did you get into my apartment?” 

“I was considering giving it to you last time, but–”

“Did you pick the lock?” Dick turned the doorknob, inspected it even, stupefied.

“–and so I’ve decided, better now than never, I’m not getting any younger–”

Slade ignored him. Blatantly.

“Does this count as breaking and entering? Did anyone see you?”

“I used a key.”

…

Dick blinked at him. 

“A key. My key?”

“Your spare key.”

“My _spare key._ I don’t have a spare key, Slade.”

“Ah.” He leaned back, hands steepled in front of him, as if he’d just realized something. “Didn’t you?”

“No!”

“Then I had one made.”

“You had one– Slade!” 

“This would have been less shocking had you been home at a decent hour.”

Dick gave up the argument, sighing as he stepped into the living room to set his bags on the table. “I met with Jason and Damian tonight for dinner after work, then we saw a movie, and then I decided that I wanted to pick up a few things before I came back."

Slade tipped his head to the side, regarding Dick with an inscrutable expression. Dick likened it to a cat - morbidly curious at all times but too proud to show it, with a sharp eye that doesn't miss a single detail.

Asshole.

"Things?"

"Ah," he parroted, propping a hip out to the side as he gave his best most disinterested face. "Does kitty want some milk?"

Slade pursed his lips, unamused. Served him right. But Dick isn't that evil. He leaned over, reaching into one bag to pull out a smaller, black opaque baggy hidden inside. That certainly received a more attentive gaze. 

"You show me yours, I'll show you mine, and then I'll forget to interrogate you about how you got around to replicating my apartment key."

At that Slade stiffened... then with a stilted motion he reached between his thigh and the arm of the chair, fishing a flat box out from his pocket, and Dick's eyebrows did the equivalent of trying to merge into his hairline.

Words escaped him, mouth hanging open stupidly like a fish.

"Is that–"

"As I was saying–"

Slade rose from his seat, took a step towards Dick, and Dick took a step back.

Dick's eyes were on that traitorous little red velvet box like he could set it on fire by burning gaze alone. He barely registered half the words Slade was saying to him, and he probably should have pushed out whatever was clogging his ears because it was an important moment; but when his brain finally turned on whatever switch it is in his head that controlled its thoughts-to-word-flow process they entirely skipped passed the cognitive filter between his lips and the wide open air.

"–Selina gets all her stuff from there–"

"–I think it would look–"

"–real nice, I see the logo on the top–"

"–if they haven't closed by now–"

"–if it's even the right size, how would you–"

"–it'll be fine, it's not gauged–"

Dick's dumb idiot skull pomegranate pumped itself dry of any and all juices and he could feel his thoughts slipping, focused intently on Slade's fingers as they peeled the lid back and oh God was this happening? What should he do what does he say?

"Shouldn't you get down on your knees for this?" He blurted, loud enough to talk over Slade and over the ringing between his ears that reverberated off the inside of his emptying head like someone used him as a battering ram against a gong.

Slade hesitated, brow setting low, and Dick didn’t understand why until Slade was almost reluctantly down on one knee, box lifted and Jesus Christ–

"If this is what you want."

"Yeah, sure. I'm certainly enjoying the view," he joked, realizing how breathless he sounded and covering it up with a fake cough.

"Right. May I continue, your Highness?"

"Yes." No! Good Lord and Heaven above no he wasn't prepared he's not–

Slade pulled off the lid.

"I'd like it if you wore these for me."

At that moment time stopped. He stared down at the open box, at what sat snugly on a dark satin cushion.

Twin studs. Round, dazzling sapphires with a blackened gold crust, not too small. Big enough that anyone might notice them on a second glance. Or first, if they were checking for that sort of–

Heat washed up from his chest, and Dick was sure that there must’ve been a noticeable flush to his cheeks because Slade's lips quirked up, a sly glint in his eye.

"Were you thinking I might’ve had something else up my sleeve?"

"No," he answered, fast, privately taking a moment to recompose his bearings.

"You were shaking so hard your knees were about to start knocking together."

"I wasn't! I was just worried you might've been going insane."

"Don't worry, pretty bird," Slade cooed, tilting his head to regard him with a face so smug Dick would instantly block it if he saw it in the comment sections of his Twitter posts. "I wouldn't torture you like that."

"I should step on you right now."

"Like I wouldn't enjoy it." Slade rolled his eye, and then his smile was back as he nudged those earrings closer, putting on the most falsely sincere facial expression Dick had ever seen him wear. And it was so obnoxious _because_ it was so obviously mocking in its half-assed genuinity. "Richard Grayson–"

"Oh my God."

"–would you do me the honor–"

Dick held his bre–

"–of being my sub?"

" _Choke on rocks._ "

Slade released a laugh, too rowdy for his own damn good, and Dick snatched the box out of his hands to get a closer look at the earrings while his lover entertained himself.

"You're a real character, y'know that? A septuagenarian chucklefuck. I dunno how you don't just laugh yourself into a coma already."

"And look who's bought every seat in the house." Slade pushed up to his feet. Plucked a stud from the box. "Now, be still."

 _Be still_ Dick could do.

He let Slade’s fingers glide up from the base of his neck and cup his jaw, tipping it ever so slightly. Allowed Slade dip close, kiss the shell of his ear and send shivers down his spine, hot breath on his skin that drew away too quickly, replaced by the cold press of thin metal to the hole in his lobe. It didn’t sting, even if he hadn't worn piercings in a long time. There wasn’t a struggle to find the other end, capping it off, and distantly he could hear Alfred chastising him for wearing unsanitized studs but that voice was easily swallowed up by logic assuring him that Slade was a professional and would never act without having a frustratingly organized plan. No room for error in Wilson World.

The other stud followed suit until both piercings were secured and Slade had leaned back to stare down at him.

Dick tucked a lock of hair behind his ear, and for some reason it was hard to meet Slade's eye, his face unbearably warm, and there'd been a tick within the clockwork of his heart that suddenly struck twelve when he glanced up and caught Slade admiring him with pitiful adoration.

It should have been new, but it wasn’t. It was painfully familiar in all the ways responsible for each decision Dick had made in this– relationship.

And that's what it was, whether Slade had the courage to admit to that or not.

A thumb caressed over his temple, pushing back his bangs as a sigh slipped from where it must have been buried deep in Slade's chest.

"Gorgeous," he whispered quietly, as if it should be a secret, and that strummed the final chord.

Dick fumbled, the baggy nearly falling from his grip as he hid it behind him, quick, letting the empty plastic flutter to the floor. Slade -- the bastard that he was -- waited patiently instead of asking, and Dick scrounged up his nerves in a desperate attempt to stop his heart from trying to pound his ribs into dust as he revealed a little tube of special lubricant. He held it up and tapped it on his chin.

“Part one,” he said, earning a raised eyebrow before he–

“Part two.” 

A box of condoms next, tipped beside the tube, and then both eyebrows were rising instead of one and Dick thought if he sat long enough he might’ve evaporated beneath the intensity of Slade’s stare.

Slade didn’t say anything immediately, and it was probably for the best. Instead he took Dick’s wrists and gently parted them so he could lean in and kiss him, soft, and Dick forgets how long they stood like that for, just kissing and kissing, lips gliding over each other, bodies pressing closer together until he found himself stumbling after Slade, towards the bedroom, and there Dick is certain he must’ve been dreaming.

For all their relationship had been built on banter and rough and unconventional, the space where they’ve allowed themselves to be emotionally vulnerable with no malicious, underlying intentions is intimate. There was trust again, cautious, barely a word spoken between them and Dick had been so thankful because he didn’t know how well he could hold onto his sanity if he let his mouth stay open longer than it took to answer Slade’s careful questions of “Is this enough?” and “Are you ready?” and “Are you sure?” 

When Slade fucked him it was gentle, lethargically paced so he could enjoy every slow roll of it, keep their lips connected, and Dick wrapped his arms behind Slade’s neck to keep them sandwiched together, legs spread by two large paws, thumbs stroking idly over his thighs.

Dick’s back curved off the mattress to meet Slade like a drawn bow and Slade angled his thrusts to pinpoint that sweet spot in Dick’s body, pulling every saccharine sound out that his voice had to possibly offer until he’d been run dry and his fingers clutched anywhere they could, higher and higher and so right and full like nothing had ever made him feel before because it wasn’t _Slade_ in him and God he never wanted to go back, never wanted to miss out again on how well Slade could move his hips and how big he felt inside, perfect and–

It’d been a climb to the top of the peak and Slade groaned into his shoulder when Dick squeezed tight around him, and normally he had to wait or ask but Slade whispered a breathless, encouraging little “Sing for me, pretty bird,” and _sing_ Dick did, Slade’s name sprinkled atop the tumble of cavity-inducing moans that spilled from his mouth, candy-coated, heat coiling in his abdomen until it dropped and there’d been nothing but molten pleasure, a wash of chills, and he painted his stomach in ropes of white with the help of his own frantic fingers working clumsily over his shaft.

Slade lasted about a fraction of a second through it, following Dick’s orgasm with a stutter of movement, grasping at Dick’s waist while he buried himself and used the tightness of Dick’s body to pump his own climax to finish, shuddering praise on every breath, peppering any available skin he could reach in butterfly kisses.

He held Dick as if he were something to be cherished, precious, and when Slade had long drawn out and they’d cleaned up and gotten back to bed together, he stayed the night and let Dick smother as much of Slade as he wanted in his arms and legs, a tangle of limbs and too-affectionate pecks here and there, capturing Slade’s lips, and it was all fuzzy warm lovey-dovey nonsense. 

But there were no complaints to be found, and that told Dick something that he wasn’t going to mention straight away.  
  


* * *

* * *

  
  
Slade is a gentleman and waits until their third time before he gets Dick spread and helpless in intricately woven binds with a soft-to-the-touch rope, and Dick spends an hour being teased and punished for being a brat before Slade does him the mercy of drilling him into the floorboards until he’s babbling blissfully stupid. He thinks he comes twice but fuck if he can remember anything that isn’t “good boy”’s and Slade’s palm sharp on his bare skin to remind him exactly why he loves this.

He wakes up bundled in Slade’s cologne scented sheets, straw to his lips, and he happily sips water through it while one warm, safe hand keeps his hair from falling over his eyes.  
  


* * *

* * *

  
  
It’d been months.

Bruce had his stint of not talking to Dick, too proud to admit he was wrong, so Dick took it upon himself to visit the mansion.

“I come bearing gifts,” he greeted when Alfred opened the door for him, looking like he wanted to wrap Dick up in his arms for rescuing him from another one of Bruce’s inward temper tantrums.

He found Bruce hiding up in his office, surrounded by documents and folders, and right on top of all those important papers is where Dick elects to drop a tray of oatmeal and raisin cookies he slaved over a hot oven for.

“Stop being an asshole,” he said, hands on his hips, and Bruce looked up at him with a faint glint of misery in his eyes. He didn’t even correct Dick on his foul language, which really showed how deep in his self-served heaping of upsetti spaghetti he was. “Oh, my God. Don’t give me that look, like a wounded animal. You’re a grown man.”

“You… haven’t been calling,” Bruce said, carefully, eyes trained on the platter in front of him.

“Communication isn’t a one way street. I could say the same to you,” he countered, fixing him with a bored expression. Even if Bruce wanted to pretend he wasn’t looking, Dick knew he was. “You can’t keep doing this forever. Eventually you’ll have to talk to me about this instead of dropping by unannounced to start fights with Slade.”

Bruce tensed at the mention of Slade’s name, jaw clenched, fingers gripping tighter around his pen. Honestly it’s so dramatic. “I don’t like him. I can’t _trust_ him.”

“Good Lord. You act like I want us to sit down and have family dinners together. I’m not asking you to _like_ him, or trust him, but at least trust _me!_ Is that too much? Aren’t you supposed to be on my side?” 

Bruce looked at him then, really _looked_ at him, and then he got his feet, fists curled over his desk. There was a spark. Dick squared his shoulders, ready to start another hours long argument as he felt it burning beneath his skin.

“I _am_ on your side, Dick. The man has three kids, questionable history, and he’s old enough to be your _father._ I don’t approve.”

“You don’t _approve?_ I’m sorry, I didn’t realize I needed to ask for your permission before I start dating anyone,” he started, and before Bruce could get the words out of his mouth Dick held up a finger and shushed him. “What do you think I want out of this? I’m gonna be _thirty_ in a couple more years, Bruce! I’m Goddamn old enough to make my own decisions, and y’know what, I’m having a really great time right now! I don’t know where this relationship is gonna go. It might last years, it might not. Maybe we’ll break up next month. I don’t _care!_ For once in my life I have stability and I feel good about that.”

“You call whatever cocktail of issues that man has _stability?_ ” Bruce raised his voice, visibly on tilt, and Dick couldn’t help but get caught up in it just like he always did.

“It’s more than I’ve ever had before! With Slade it’s simple, and I have my own business now, and I have things that are _mine_ that I worked hard for! These are things I’ve earned and I don’t have to torture myself wondering if I’m good enough or that I deserve it and the only person who doesn’t wanna be happy for me is _you!_ ”

“I can’t be _happy_ knowing that there’s something else out there that might _hurt_ you–”

Bruce covered his mouth.

Dick’s eyes widened, and like that the fire stamped out, nothing but a cold chill in the wake of its ashes.

The air itself stilled between them, with Bruce refusing to meet his gaze again, and there was almost something like shame creeping onto his face before it smoothed impeccably flat over the bed Bruce had made for himself.

“... Slade isn’t going to hurt me, B,” he murmured, slow.

“I can’t know that,” Bruce muttered back, restraint in his voice that Dick hadn’t liked to hear. Dick didn’t reply, waited, letting the quiet coax Bruce into opening up. “Do you know how terrifying it is for me? That I could almost lose you again? That I might have to– pick up the pieces, like before?” 

Dick didn’t flinch, but he did frown, feet moving before he’d realized that they were leading him around the bend of Bruce’s desk so that he could get a hand on his arm, squeezing gently.

“I know you want to protect me. Bruce, I promise, Slade isn’t going to _hurt_ me. I’m not a kid anymore, and he’s not like _her,_ he would never– He respects me. I promise.”

Bruce uncovered his mouth, digging his fingers into his palms. Dick could see how it took clinging to every shred of dignity he had to not collapse right there or turn and do something too stupid like _hug_ Dick, God forbid he ever allowed himself a moment of unshielded sentiment.

Instead he wrapped his own arms around Bruce, who chose to lean into him like a touch starved geriactric patient rather than confess anymore of those bottled up emotions of his, physically or verbally, and Dick stroked his back, selfishly taking advantage.  
  


* * *

* * *

  
  
There's a gift basket sitting on Slade's living room table.

They'd been stewing in silence as Slade digested its existence, bouncing one knee beneath the other, restless.

"He's trying to poison me, isn't he?" Slade griped, arms crossed as he glared at the offending object.

"I think he's trying to apologize."

"Wayne doesn't apologize for anything."

"He included two movie tickets in here for the fancy mega theatre downtown. Valid for anything we wanna see. It's basically a free date almost. Did I say there were two?"

"I don't like movies."

"God, you sound so _old._ "

"I'd kick you out and lock every door and window to the house if I wasn't so sure you'd still figure out a way back in."

Dick chuckled, dragging the gift basket into his lap to sort through it. Aside from tickets Bruce had apparently added European chocolates, a bottle of expensive champagne, and a Visa gift card with no doubt some ludicrous amount of money on it. Probably for them to go to dinner. "There's a perfect evening in here."

Slade swiped the gift card out of the basket, turning it over in his grip. "If Wayne wants to buy my forgiveness, I'm not going to say no to free money."

"You can say that because he hasn't been trying to do it since you were eight."

"I'd bleed him dry."

Despite his moaning and groaning, Slade took Dick to see the newest murder mystery comedy that came out, biting his tongue on any ill natured comments, forcing himself to enjoy it. He didn't seem to hate it, even if he didn't like it, but when Dick laughed at the funnier parts he could feel a bit of the tension escape Slade's shoulder where his head was resting.  
  


* * *

* * *

  
  


  
  


* * *

* * *

  
  
Sweat beaded down his temple, eyes screwed shut, his knuckles gone white with how hard he grasped the arm of the couch.

He'd never had to hold a position for so long before, not once in his life. A firm hand kept him steady, cupped around the breadth of his ribcage, warm and comforting in his time of need. For respite, for more; he couldn't decide which one to choose. 

It'd been hours.

Dick tipped his head back to the very edge of his allotted amount, hissing in pain as fire sparked through his nerves like the crack of a whip. His breaths came short and fast, half seethed through his clenched teeth as he swallowed dryly before his mouth hung open again, as it had been, panting methodically to keep the rest of his nerves calm and his arms from trembling.

"Slade," he choked out, barely above a whisper and ready to plead.

"Ten more minutes." Slade dismissed his complaint instantly, and Dick dug his knees into the leather upholstery under them as his back arched, voice catching in his throat with a response that never came. It earned him a palm running down and over his hip, squeezing there to hold him in place. "Be good, Grayson."

Dick _whined_ , his toes curling. He made an attempt to arch in further, but the hand on his waist merely ran up the bare expanse of his body, palming his chest with enough pressure to make him straighten out.

The pain in his back flourished then and Dick let slip a particularly pathetic noise, tongue darting out to wet his lips before he resorted to grinding his teeth together, a restrained cry trapped in his throat. He had the wherewithal to briefly chastise himself mentally for squirming, but discipline never really stuck well with him, and he was wriggling again in seconds. Slade growled in frustration at his movement, fingers digging into Dick's sternum in warning.

"I can't- anymore."

His head turned where it rested in the crook of an elbow so he could point two damp, narrowed eyes at Slade. His cheeks felt hot, but not as terrible as the burn across his shoulder blades did.

Slade answered his complaint with a quick, stinging bite into the junction of his neck. The air escaped Dick's lungs, hips jerking back on pure reflex only to be met with nothing, and before he could utter even a single syllable of another grievance, Slade's hand abandoned Dick's clavicle to splay over his lumbar region and _push_ him flat against the couch cushions in one graceless effort.

" _Slade!_ " Dick gasped, scrabbling for purchase along the edges.

"I said be good, didn't I?" 

"You're an asshole," he spat back, catching his breath in the meantime while Slade forced his waist to stay down. "C'mon, give me a _breather._ "

"You'll never be this lax again next time we do it, and I'd rather finish tonight." Slade hovered near him, and normally Dick might've liked that, but today he hadn't.

Hot metal touched his flesh, buzzing through his nerves as it dragged hiccuping motions of a needle into his skin. Dick groaned some noise of protest, cheek smushed into the sofa as he clutched the silver framework of it. "You call this _lax?_ "

"Yes." And again, a lift of the pen, another drag of fire seeping ink between patterned lines. "Compared to the last two times."

It'd been weeks between sessions, too long of a wait before the next for Dick to actually adjust to the type of pain that followed an artistic mark on his body. The only reason he could manage this one was because shading somehow hurt significantly less than the initial outlining.

But that didn't mean he was peachy keen about having something pin-sized jab him in the very thin layer of protection over his scapula. 

"It _hurts._ "

"I've seen you handle worse."

"That's not the- same, and you know it. Have some sympathy. Who suggested me getting a tattoo in the first place?"

"Who insisted that I paint you _here,_ even after I advised against it?"

"You didn't _advise against it!_ " Dick craned his neck so he could glare at Slade, seething a moment as he willed his way through another burst of sharp pain. "I- very distinctly remember you suggesting I wouldn't like it, and I told you, _oh babe_ how could I ever hate anything you do? And then you let me walk into it blindly."

"Is love a tender thing? It is too rough, too rude, too boisterous, and it pricks like thorn," Slade deadpanned, and Dick swore he pressed the needle down a little harder on purpose. "The doors of breath seal with a righteous kiss. A dateless bargain to engrossing death."

" _Ugh._ " 

"It's done." Slade leaned back, pen clinking against a tray as he set it down. Dick made to leap to his feet, but Slade kept him right where he wanted, unpermitted an inch of territory to writhe in. " _You're_ not, however."

Mother hugger- "Can I at least see it?" 

"After. Keep still so I can photograph it," Slade ordered, drawing his hands back, and Dick sighed. His head flopped onto his arms once he folded them up like a pillow to rest on, legs kicking impatiently.

The sound of a shutter made his ears twitch, and the coolness of the wipe Slade used to clean his upper back off made him shiver as much as the admiring caress down the center of his spine did. Despite the rough callousness of his large fingers, Slade always worked with unbelievable finesse, a gentle touch Dick knew in more than one ways and which always pleasantly surprised him.

A bandage followed after, lain across his aching muscles and sealed with a clear film Dick already knew he'd spend days trying to resist picking at. He had no doubts Slade might really make due on a threat to kill him if he so much as prematurely peeled a scab off his hard labor. Either intentionally or by mistake.

“As promised, Juliet,” Slade said, sliding his phone in front of Dick at the same time he stepped around to begin cleaning utensils.

Dick listened to the sound of metal and glass shifting together, lifting his head to gaze at the photo placed beneath him.

His eyebrows rose.

There on _his_ back was a spread that looked even better with black ink to finally fill it at last. A pair of wings that stretched over his shoulder blades, artistically intricate and articulated with detail only a master of his technique could perform. If Dick hadn’t been the victim of all its puncturing into perfection, he’d be convinced they might’ve been real. Tuft of plumage began in the dips of his shoulder blades, arching up into soft curves that reached to the edges of his shoulders. Layers of dark feathers with striking electric blue highlights were presented in a fanning of their beauty, ready to come to life and start soaring.

"Wow," he breathed, touching the screen to zoom in. “It’s even more incredible with color.”

“I’m good at what I do, kid.” 

A small peek over granted Dick the sight of a smile that barely tugged at the corner of Slade’s lips. He deemed it safe to start moving, sitting up carefully so he could maneuver himself off the couch and onto his feet. “Humility is a good look on you.”

Slade merely snorted; Dick found it just endearing enough that it deserved a kiss on the cheek.

 

“Coffee?” 

A simple offer. Slade grunted in response, which was as much of an “okay” as Dick was going to get, so he plucked Slade’s wrist away from his tools to guide him to his feet, leading the way out of the studio basement and into the rest of the house, towards the kitchen.

 

Coffee was easy to make when Slade wasn’t running his mitts up and down each inch of exposed skin he could find on Dick’s body, or getting his mouth in the way of Dick’s when he halfheartedly tried to protest.

It was especially hard when the back of his legs hit the table, and instead of letting him sprawl out onto its surface Slade grabbed the back of his neck, letting Dick hover over it at an irritating angle as he whined.

“You’re a menace,” Dick murmured against his lips, his own palms sliding up over Slade’s biceps. Thanks, Adonis, he’d never get tired of those.

“We can still have fun without ruining all my hard work.” 

Dick felt him smile into the kiss before Slade pulled away, dragging Dick with him by the hold on his scruff, and maybe he didn’t really mind that as much as he should have. He certainly didn’t resist when Slade turned him around, grip still firm as he bent Dick over the table until his chest was pressed down onto cool lacquer finish, a stark contrast to the heat in his belly.

He tipped his head, resting a cheek against the wood so he could glance back at Slade. “You have a kink and it involves me being doubled over any available surface.”

“You’re just figuring that out?” Slade shot him a coy little smirk, and Dick rolled his eyes for show. He shivered when Slade’s other fingers traced featherlight over his bandages, down the center of his spine until they made contact with skin. “Think daddy will approve of your new addition?”

“I don’t know. Do you?” 

It was Dick’s turn to grin when Slade released a deep sort of growl in approval, hips pressing up to meet his backside. “Mm. Cheap shot, kid.”

“Love is a smoke made with the fumes of sighs,” Dick recited, waggling his eyebrows. It was rewarded with a loud slap to his side. “Ah!”

“Brat.”

“As if you aren’t head over heels _endeared_ by me.”

“Hmm. Am I?” Slade amended the prickling flesh by smoothing a palm over it, soothing, framing Dick’s body the way he always did when he admired him.

“Yes.” Dick preened under the attention, letting Slade keep working at his waist. He shimmied his hips back, gaining another rock forward from Slade, and a squeeze around his neck that sent sparks of pleasure through his nerves. “Mmn, keep doing that.”

“Feels good?” Slade squeezed again and Dick mewled shamelessly daintily with a nod, biting his lip. Those hands pressed in firmer, both over his neck, then down, his shoulders and arms and ribs, massaging into his hips and thighs until they found their way trailing back up to his throat where they squeezed another moan out of Dick. “Does my little bird like it when he’s being spoiled?”

“Uh huh,” Dick sighed, breathless, arching up when Slade took his jaw in one hand and set a palm into the center of his back, posing him. Warm fuzz seeped into the edges of his mind already with just that, his jeans feeling inexplicably tighter. A tiny, barely there moan caught in his chest when Slade’s fingers curled, digging into the meat of his mandible, not particularly hard but enough it was a known pressure to work Dick’s mouth open, so all the pretty noises he had to make wouldn’t be obscured. 

“Should we relocate?” Slade’s voice was in his ear, lips ghosting over the shell of it and warming the metal of his earring. Dick shuddered obviously. “Not that the idea of having you over the kitchen table isn’t appealing.”

“No lube here want you in me,” he slurred fast, tongue darting out to wet his parted lips. 

Slade released him, and Dick was free to move a hand so he could rub at his jaw. “Better get a move on then, before I change my mind”

 _Oh._ Dick shuddered again, resisting an all too pleased smile that wanted to creep onto his face. He straightened up, then spun around to face Slade, reaching out to grasp at his shirt. Slade’s thumb found itself in the junction of his clavicle, rubbing there on what Dick could already classify as instinct. He liked that; liked it even more that he didn’t have to ask for Slade to lean down and give him one last kiss before Dick was breaking away to make a bolt for the stairs.

His pants were off before he even reached the bed, flopping facedown onto it and spreading his arms out. God. Slade’s mattress was so much better than his, he really needed to invest in a Purple Mattress sometime soon in his life before he died, which would probably be from bed sores. If it were possible. He’s fifty-fifty on that one.

Dick shifted, then groaned miserably, bandages rubbing awkward. That wouldn’t do. He pushed himself up, discarding of his underwear as he fished around in Slade’s top drawer for one of the many spare shirts he kept here for those days he didn’t feel like going into work wearing the same outfit as the day before. Not that he cared. Maybe. Cassandra cared, that was enough to warrant the extra precautions.

He slipped the t-shirt on and flopped back down, sighing contently. Much better. No more gauze catching on stray fibers.

“Eager?” Slade chimed from the doorway, drawing Dick’s attention to him.

He smiled, kicking his legs back and forth as he propped his chin in his hands. “Comfy. Hurry up.”

“It’s not polite to rush people, Richard.” 

“Guess who I learned it from, mister hypocrite.” He grinned as Slade quirked a brow, watching him step over to take a seat on the edge of the bed, close enough he could open the nightstand and pull out a bottle. Dick crawled over and hovered around him, buzzing with anticipation already. “You gonna teach me some manners?”

Slade eyed him a moment, humming. “I’m thinking about it. Get on your front.”

That was Dick’s cue to turn back around, crawling back up the bed so he could lay-

Hands grabbed his legs before he could, sweeping them out from under him so he flopped facedown again, and then they were on his hips, dragging him over until Dick was across Slade’s lap, cheeks burning. “Hey!”

“Too slow,” Slade teased, and Dick had very, very little to say in retort when a palm covered his thigh, kneading into it. “The shirt was a smart idea.”

Dick was shaking already, hips reflexively canting down to rub his half-hard erection into Slade’s leg. Ugh. “I didn’t want you ruining my dressing- ah!” He was cut off by a slap to the back of his thigh, skin tingling in its wake.

“What did we just say about manners?” Slade sounded too smug for his own good and Dick had the sudden urge to kick him in the head.

Not that it would do him any good. He’s already tried.

“Oh, I beseech you, kind sir, don’t _wound_ me, no,” Dick cooed, mocking, tipping his head back just enough he could flutter his lashes at Slade.

Then he braced himself, knowing what was coming next; fingers threading into his hair, grasping tight before shoving his head back down into the mattress to keep him from making anymore quips.

“You were singing a very different song last week when you were begging me to punish you, boy. Funny how that comes up.”

“I did not,” he defended, smothered into the blankets. 

“ _Daddy,_ please don’t stop, I deserve it, hit me _more,_ ” Slade purred, followed by another smack to Dick’s thigh, earning another yelp. “Sound familiar?”

He was going to die by humiliation, actually, and then he’d have to double die as a ghost when Bruce did the case report on his extremely sexy and undignified death. “Doesn’t ring any bells.”

“Uh huh.” 

Another smack met his flesh -- ”Ah!” -- and another -- “Mn!” -- trail inching higher until Slade was leaving marks on his ass, earning moans and tiny cries from Dick with each one, short breaks in between to rub and massage his muscles with hums of approval. 

Dick curled an arm under his forehead when Slade finally let him, clutching at the comforter. The spaces between his thoughts were muddled in candy goo, his mouth feeling sticky sweet and head full of cotton. Slade gave him another chance to breathe before his palm came down again on his rump, urging Dick’s hips to grind into Slade’s thigh where his arousal was trapped -- shamefully hard -- between them.

A shiver crawled up his spine when Slade’s hand slipped between his legs, cupping delicate places as if he were assessing them. “Getting off on this, Grayson? I thought you were too good for that.”

“M’not,” he murmured, whimpering as that wandering hand slid up, pulling one cheek to the side to expose Dick’s hole, thumb brushing the sensitive flesh around it. 

“Of course. Wouldn’t want anyone to think you _enjoyed_ being spanked over Daddy’s lap, would you?” 

Warmth abandoned his thighs for only a moment, giving Dick just enough time to recompose before cold, wet fingers were back at his hole, prodding against it ever so carefully.

“Mmn- fuck,” Dick gasped, the grasp on his hair tightening then and yanking his head back, letting him pant unobstructed into the open air.

“Watch your language,” Slade chastised him in that _voice,_ low and threatening with a layer of _want_ to it, making Dick’s stomach flip.

“Yes- Yes sir,” he hastily gasped, knees parting as a single finger breached him, pumping impatiently into his body. Dick squirmed, adjusting, making an effort to raise his hips into Slade’s ministrations. It got him what he wanted, two fingers instead of one, working through the tension in his muscles, and Dick moaned for it, satisfied.

Above him he heard Slade chuckle, the grip in his hair going loose to massage into his scalp instead, combing through his hair and easing him down against the mattress again as Slade’s fingers spread, massaging him open. “There you are, pretty bird. Good boy.”

The praise went straight between his legs, drawing his hips up higher and then- then a keen, when Slade’s fingers crooked just right- “Th-There! There there, right there-”

“Here?” Again, another press, fingers petting against that _spot._

Dick smothered his cries into the comforter, grabbing onto it for dear life, and God Slade didn’t need to _ask_ him, he _knew,_ but Dick was too far gone by now to split hairs about it because he was being tended to so thoroughly and his body ached from the head of his dick down to the bruises on his thighs. “ _Yes_ yes-!”

“Look at you, all ready to fall apart and we’ve barely gotten started.” Slade’s fingers eased, just barely brushing his prostate and Dick wanted to _scream_ in frustration. He wriggled his hips back, trying to get _more,_ but Slade’s other hand abandoned his hair to grasp his waist and cease his movements. “None of that.”

Slade kept him like that, torturously on the edge, just enough stimulation to keep the butterflies soaring in his stomach and tip beading messily over his lap. 

He worked Dick up until he was clenching around those fingers, voice reaching higher octaves, and then he stopped, waited, over and over. Dick whined and sobbed, digging his toes into the mattress, anything to exert the energy. He couldn’t move, couldn’t grind down or lean back into it. Slade’s strength kept Dick right where he wanted him.

“ _Slade-_ ” he started, when he finally could through all of his panting.

“Is there something you want? Are you going to ask nicely for it?” 

Dick would happily forfeit his sanity if it meant Slade would keep talking to him in that domineering voice; would keep using Dick’s body like a plaything to have his fun with.

“Slade- please, _please_ I need- I want-” Dick choked on his words once Slade returned to pumping those fingers at a relentless pace, slipping a third inside and coaxing, stretching, and Slade knew he’d won and it honestly drove Dick so mad that he _begged_ and begged - “ _Daddy--_ Daddy please fuck me I’ll be good I promise I- I need to be fucked I want it I-”

It was all a blur as Slade moved him, knees propped up so his hips were flush against Slade’s cock, sitting heavy against his rim and he didn’t quite know if Slade was way too fast at getting his fly undone, or if Dick was just fading in and out. He kept his cheek against the mattress, arms under his chest like an extra cushion, and the second Slade managed to slip the head of his cock passed Dick’s tight ring of muscle he groaned an _at last_ sort of noise, body quivering. Hands went to his waist, easing him to rock back so Slade could keep slipping further, inch by inch, so much bigger and filling than his fingers were and it’s like a dream come true when he’s sheathed himself completely inside and overstuffing. Dick babbled something grateful and then Slade began to move, deliciously slow at first, rolling deep and steady grinds into Dick.

His shirt rucked up, giving a good view of the pretty dip in his back, and Slade groaned appreciatively at the sight of it. Dick loved that. Loved being the center of attention, admired; loved how Slade couldn’t keep his paws to at bay and tasted every inch of skin that presented itself, like Dick had been a treat he absolutely needed to indulge in and savor. 

“Who’s my good boy? So easy to break, begging to have Daddy inside you.” Slade fucked him harder, deeper, and Dick moaned wantonly with every thrust, perfectly adjusted to pinpoint that bundle of nerves that felt so mind blowingly good. “Like that, baby? Tell me. Tell me how much you wanna come on Daddy’s cock like a good little birdie. Tell me how much you like it.”

“I- _Oohfuck!_ I like it- I like it so much I love it when you’re inside me, love how it feels wanna come on you please-” Dick prattled on, the floodgates opened and he couldn’t stop and Slade’s grip only grew tighter- “Love- how you feel and taste and scent- I love everything love when your hands are on me and don’t stop- _please-_ I love it I love you-”

 

Slade froze above him.

 

It jarred Dick from his stupor so abruptly, the realization of what he - what he’d just - 

His whole body stiffened and suddenly that delightful haze that was clouding his head had parted enough for him to feel an inkling of what _fear_ was, an awful combination to mix with his emotionally unstable state, and Dick wanted to shrivel up and cry right then and there and the only thing stopping him was Slade’s harsh silence, the painfully stagnant atmosphere around them.

Fuck. Fuck. _Fuck._

“I’m-” Dick started, but he didn’t even know where to begin, let alone finish, an apology on the tip of his tongue.

Any second Slade would kick him out and tell him he’s too young and too stupid and that he’d completely misinterpreted this relationship-- that it’s _not_ a relationship because Slade doesn’t _do_ those and oh God what has he done. What has he--

Slade drew away from him, fast, and Dick screwed his eyes shut, fighting back the inevitable breakdown, hating himself for being too open, being unable to keep his mouth shut even though it’d been so long and he’d done so well up until now and why why why now of all times did he have to go and fuck this up! Why!?

He scrambled to sit up, ignoring how his thighs burned so much worse, undeserving, _filthy_ because he’d just tainted this moment and everything between them. “Slade I’m- I’m so s-”

When he turned around, Slade had just -- stared at him. Like he’d been confused. Like he’d been in-- 

_Disbelief._

Dick barely had a second to contemplate it before Slade was cupping the back of his head and dragging him forward, connecting their lips, and Dick was too stunned to kiss back straight away. It took an embarrassingly long moment for this to register in his brain before he was surging forward and getting his arms looped around Slade’s shoulders, clambering up onto his lap until their bodies sandwiched together.

They fumbled more, getting Slade’s shirt off, his trousers gone, throwing them somewhere in the room that Dick absolutely didn’t give a single shit about. Slade’s hands slid underneath Dick’s shirt and held him close, clutching him as if he were afraid Dick might try to run away if he let go.

“Again-” Slade murmured against his lips, repositioning Dick over his arousal like he were entirely weightless. “Say it again.”

Dick’s world was spinning and he sank down, helped get Slade back inside him with a whine. “-love you. I love you,” he panted, rolling motions resuming at a significantly less brutal pace but now-- faster and clumsy, both bodies eager for something more.

“Again,” he repeated, pulling Dick down into another kiss before his lips were wandering, sucking marks into the crook of Dick’s neck and yanking his shirt over his chest to reach further. “Don’t- Don’t stop saying it, keep going.”

“ _Fuck_ , Slade-” Dick’s eyes fluttered shut, head lolled to the side. “I love you- Ooh _Slade,_ I love you- so much. I love you I love you-”

He chanted it over and over like a mantra, littered with moans and sensitive noises, Slade’s thrusts only picking up pace until Dick was squeezing him so _so_ tight that it ached all _good_ and his hands reached, frantic, combing through Slade’s hair and mussing it out of its ponytail so he could grab fistfuls of it.

And Slade _groaned,_ deeply, smothering his face into Dick’s chest. 

It wasn’t enough to hide his voice completely, or the tiny moan that slipped through as he’d lost himself in the moment, to Dick’s pot finally tipping when he comes with Slade’s name on his lips. Dick could hear his whispers, the way he’d said “Dick” then corrected it to “Richard”, open and bare for nobody but Dick to bare witness, and when his own climax hit Dick knows he wasn’t imagining the faint “-too” at the end of some other incomprehensible growls. He knows what words were there and the fact that they happened at all sent warmth blossoming through his chest.

Dick tugged Slade’s head back and kissed him sloppily, more tongue than anything, begging to hear those words in their entirety, and he supposed Slade must have been too exhausted and blindsided by the situation to really stop himself from being too prideful to murmur “I love you,” against Dick’s mouth.

They collapsed onto the bed, Dick sprawled out over Slade’s chest, breathing heavy.

It’s quiet aside from their incessant panting, and Dick had no idea how to come back to the surface.

 

He remembers being young and riding teacups with Jason at the amusement park, and Jason spun and spun and spun them until Dick was laughing so hard he was on the verge of throwing up.

This is like that except the teacups also rotate an entire 360 degrees, and instead of a seat it’s a hamster ball and nobody is laughing.

 

“So,” someone says, and it takes Dick a beat to process that it was his own mouth that did it. “That was special.”

Slade grunted a reply.

There were arms around him next, caging him in a bearhug, and then Slade rolled them both onto their sides with Dick’s face squished against his chest.

“Oof.” He double-tapped Slade’s bicep. “I give! Uncle!”

“Goodnight.” Slade sounded so petulant it was almost adorable.

“It’s not even dinner time yet!” Dick protested, muffled against solid pecs.

Not that he’d really complain about those. _Helloooo nurse._

“What a shame. I suppose you’ll have to starve.”

“I won’t survive, my body needs sustenance. I’ll wither away and deteriorate.”

“Sounds like a personal problem.”

“Don’t be so upset, I thought you were cu- _guah!_ ” Dick’s interrupted by Slade squeezing the air out of him like a squeaky toy. “Okay, very not cool or fair, you’re a mountain and I’m like a smaller and more flatter mountain. A hill. I’m a bunny slope.”

“Richard,” Slade grumbled in warning, all gravel and bite to it.

“Yes?” Dick couldn’t bend his neck far enough to look at Slade, and he wouldn’t be able to anyway because Slade buried his face into the top of his head, breathing him in, hiding, and Dick felt his heart skip a beat just then.

“Be quiet.”

 

Dick should have probably taken offense to that, but he didn’t. His cheeks felt hot and his pulse thrummed fast, a drumline in his ears, and when he slowly lifted his arms to sneak them around Slade’s waist it felt- right.

This felt _right_ and Dick might be too scared of that, he doesn’t want to break this, _whatever_ it is, and Slade must have been so grateful for Dick returning the embrace because he sighed contently above him, as if he were the happiest man in the world. Dick couldn’t even fathom it, that this was happening, and how did- when- 

But that wasn’t important he supposed, not now.

He turned his head and put his ear to Slade’s chest, lulled by the sound of his heartbeat, strong and fast and all for Dick.

 

This hadn’t been what he expected, when he started this thing with Slade.

It’s more than he could have imagined; more than he felt he could have asked for.

 

But he has it now, and for as long as he did, he’d treasure it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for reading!
> 
> follow me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/gochen_), im so lonely


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